Enter the Empire of Aghaus where you play as Two mercenaries named Damien and Nicholas, who one day are embroiled in a conflict on an continental scale which changes their whole lives and brings to light their mysterious past...

Gameplay

Like any other RPGs Ash consists of walking around and randomly encountering enemies, which of course is a lot of fun, if you like Final Fantasy series. Ash has all the gameplay elements a good RPG should have: enemy encounters, the weapon shops, intriguing story line, and epic battles. When you are sucked into a battle you can tap the enemy to attack or the buttons on the left side to use magic or heal. On the top of the screen you see the characters' faces (this includes the enemies) and see the order of attacks. After successfully defeating the enemy you earn EXP which will level you up making your mercenaries more powerful.

Of course in every RPG you have towns filled with missions and weapon and item shops. In Ash, you take missions from local towns people and when you complete them you earn major EXP and cash. In the weapon shops you can purchase and weapon that your character can equip. In the item shop you can purchase helpful items that will aide you on your journey through the Kingdom of Aghaus.

All in all the Gameplay in Ash provides all the satisfaction of a quest based RPG and random enemy encounter system. The variety of missions, weapons and items rival major RPG titles for iOS including Zonia and Inotia series.

Graphics

Graphics this is pretty much the biggest attraction for Ash. The graphics in Ash bring about nostalgia the old era RPGs as it spotlights the basic elements and characters of those games. The graphics are top notch by old school RPG standards, with one caveat: the enemies don?t move much. When you encounter enemies you?d expect to see some sort of animation of the enemies, but in Ash all you have is what appears to be a well designed enemy with no movement almost like a picture. While I don't think it's a very bad thing I was still surprised about the lifeless enemies.

The controls in Ash are both good and bad. For instance, while walking around you can choose either two control schemes, one being a tiny d-pad and the other being a full screen control system where you press the far left of the iPhone to go left and the far right to move right. The 2nd control tends to get quickly annoying and the 1st control scheme is all right except for the fact the D-pad is small, making it hard to walk around. So in a future update the developers should add an option to make the d-pad larger. The in battle controls are a totally different story. Unlike the hassle I had to go through with the D-pad to walk around, the in battle controls were quick easy and responsive. One tap to attack the enemy, as simple as that.

Sound

Sound is another big aspect of the game, Ash doesn?t disappoint. Th soundtrack is awesome and thrilling. When you enter a battle you are immediately greeted by music of epic portions almost as good as the ones in Final Fantasy series. When you defeat the enemies a capturing tune like the ones in Final Fantasy plays out. Not to mention that you can play your own music. Bet o all the soundtracks never get dull during the gameplay though.

Conclusion

Ash revives the RPG goodness that everyone loved back in the era of the 32bit. It brings back the immersive gameplay, old nostalgic graphics, catchy tunes, and an epic storyline in a no-frill style that long time RPG fans know and love.